Georgian College is on a quest to be the most environmentally friendly and sustainable community college in Ontario.  To this end, they have agreed to allow CellCycle.ca to place Cell Phone collection bins on both the Barrie & Orillia campuses with an additional bin to be added to the Owen Sound campus shortly.

With a large student population and many cellular subscribers on campus, this proves to be a very worthwhile and rewarding project for both the college and our community!

Journalist Lance Holdforth, photographer Mr. McVeigh and the rest of the staff at The Barrie Examiner were very generous with their time today after interviewing me about the CellCycle.ca project.

Thanks to them even more people are becoming aware of what CellCycle.ca is all about!

You can read the article for a limited time by clicking here.

Special thanks to Sharon Posius and the crew at A News for taking the time to spread the word about our service here in Barrie!

As this and other local television stations fight for their survival, this is a great reminder why local TV is so important and why the “free ride” for signal providers must come to an end.

Thanks are in order to journalist Leigh Blenkhorn and The Barrie Advance for taking the time yesterday to cover the launch of the CellCycle.ca cellular recycling program.

The article is available for viewing online here.

Cell phones are among the fastest growing stream of electronic waste and the least recycled.  Wireless industry estimates place the recycling rate of cell phones in Canada below 12% with most older, unused phones either collecting dust or being discarded in the trash.  With an estimated 15,000,000 wireless telephone subscribers in Canada who upgrade their handset every 2 years or more often, this represents a significant amount of pollution that is being passed on to future generations.

One Barrie, Ontario organization has decided to do something about this.  CellCycle is a social project designed to not only protect the environment by recycling old cell phones, it also aims to improve the air quality in the community and do something to combat climate change. 

To offset the CO2 generated by the production, distribution, use, and eventual recycling of cellular phones, CellCycle has committed to plant one tree seedling for each phone collected at any one of its drop boxes conveniently located throughout the community.  Area residents and business people will find easily accessible drop boxes located at each Canadian Tire store and several of the Zehrs Markets located in the City of Barrie.

The City is doing its part as well. In support of the project, the urban forestry department of the City of Barrie has generously agreed to allow the project to plant seedlings on selected public park lands.

An old Chinese proverb says “One generation plants a tree, the next sits under the shade.”  With any luck, CellCycle will grow a greener future for the community and the areas around.

Full details about the project are available online at www.CellCycle.ca